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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Julio Cortazar - Argentina

Biography:Julio Cortázar (sometimes called "Grandísimo Cronopio" in reference to a genus of fantastic creatures he created) was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1914, to Argentine parents. When he was four years old, his family returned to Buenos Aires to a section of town called Banfield. After completing his studies at the University of Buenos Aires, he became a professor of French literature at the University of Cuyo, Mendoza, in the middle 1940s.

In 1951, in opposition to the Perón regime, Cortázar emigrated to France, where he lived until his death. From 1952 he worked for UNESCO as a translator. His translation projects included Spanish renderings of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and it is commonly noted that Poe's influence is recognizable in his work.

In his later years he underwent a political transformation, becoming actively engaged with leftist causes in Latin America, and openly supporting the Cuban Revolution and the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

He was married three times, to Aurora Bernárdez (in 1953), Ugné Karvelis and Carol Dunlop.

Julio Cortázar died of leukemia in Paris in 1984 and was interred there in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. It has recently been suggested that AIDS (contracted through a blood transfusion before this disease was identified and given a name) may have been the cause of his death, though the fact not only reminds uncomfirmed, but is sometimes considered a urban myth.